The Dead Boy's Guide To Second Chances

22. the opposite of a ghost

FOUR MONTHS AND TWENTY-ONE DAYS AFTER THE DEATH OF OLIVER SALLOW

Finn always thought it would last longer.

Maybe that's because he was sixteen and naïve. Maybe it's because he got so swept up in Oliver Sallow's gravity that he lost sight of the bigger picture, starry-eyed as he ignored the red flags in his periphery.

Or maybe they really were that serious—because they were teenagers, because they were each other's firsts—and it's just easier to tell himself they weren't. A way to make sense of a punctuation mark that felt, to him, like it appeared in the middle of a sentence.

Cut short, he couldn't understand its contents at all.

He still can't, if he's being honest. He doesn't know why Oliver broke up with him on a random day in May, or why they never spoke again after that. He's not sure he ever really did.

With a groan, he buries his face against his pillow. The glow-in-the-dark letters on his alarm clock tell him that it's two a.m. by now. The perfect time, apparently, to dig out all the memories he's spent the last year burying.

Accepting that sleep won't come anytime soon, he picks up his phone. Oliver's playlist is still playing softly—Finn has a hard time falling asleep in total silence—a gentle guitar filling his room. It's not the kind of music that Oliver would ever listen to. It's a playlist curated specifically for Finn; full of the kind of mellow indie music that he likes, only more niche, the stuff you only find when really digging through obscure Spotify playlists. Even now, the idea of Oliver forcing himself through hours of songs outside his preferred genre for Finn makes him feel warm.

Squinting at the screen in the dark, Finn checks his messages, then scrolls through an Instagram account with football memes for a while. Eventually, he returns where he always does: to Oliver Sallow's phone number.

Finn's thumb hovers above it as he breathes shakily into his dark room. Over a month, he's gone without seeing him. It should be easy by now to lock his phone and set it back down, find something else to occupy himself with until his head stops buzzing.

Except Finn feels off-kilter tonight. Something about comforting his mum and then fighting with his dad has left him feeling raw. He knows he can't talk about it with Aarun and Kavi or any of his other mates—something about that feels like betraying his mother's trust. But Oliver... he already knows all about this.

Before he can think better of it, Finn presses Call.

He holds his breath as the familiar beeping sounds and the eerie choir announces that Oliver will be there shortly. In the few seconds he has, he takes quick stock of himself: he's wearing only boxer shorts and an oversized shirt with a hole near the collar, and his hair probably looks like something nested in it.

Probably he should have thought about this prior to calling, but before he can regret his decision (or do much about his outfit), a dark silhouette appears at the foot of his bed.

Its sudden appearance is every bit as menacing as one would imagine. Instinctively, Finn scrambles for the lamp on his bedside table, almost knocking his meds to the floor in the process. His heart only settles when light floods his bedroom and he looks up to find Oliver staring at him like a deer in headlights.

For a long moment, neither of them speaks.

Then: "Did you mean to—"

"I'm so sorry, you probably—"

They both break off at the same time.

Oliver swallows. "Did you mean to call me?"

"I..." Finn's cheeks feel hot as he sits up, his legs tangled in his blanket. "Yeah. I did."